If the inhabitant of a temperate climate passes in turn through both
extremes his advantage is plain, for although he may be changed as
much as he who goes from one extreme to the other, he only removes
half-way from his natural condition. A Frenchman can live in
New Guinea or in Lapland, but a negro cannot live in Tornea nor a
Samoyed in Benin. It seems also as if the brain were less perfectly
organised in the two extremes. Neither the negroes nor the Laps
are as wise as Europeans. So if I want my pupil to be a citizen of
the world I will choose him in the temperate zone, in France for
example, rather than elsewhere.
In the north with its barren soil men devour much food, in the
fertile south they eat little. This produces another difference: the
one is industrious, the other contemplative. Society shows us, in
one and the same spot, a similar difference between rich and poor.
The one dwells in a fertile land, the other in a barren land.
The poor man has no need of education. The education of his
own station in life is forced upon him, he can have no other; the
education received by the rich man from his own station is least
fitted for himself and for society. Moreover, a natural education
should fit a man for any position. Now it is more unreasonable
to train a poor man for wealth than a rich man for poverty, for
in proportion to their numbers more rich men are ruined and fewer
poor men become rich. Let us choose our scholar among the rich; we
shall at least have made another man; the poor may come to manhood
without our help.
For the same reason I should not be sorry if Emile came of a good
family. He will be another victim snatched from prejudice.
Emile is an orphan. No matter whether he has father or mother,
having undertaken their duties I am invested with their rights.
He must honour his parents, but he must obey me. That is my first
and only condition.
I must add that there is just one other point arising out of this;
we must never be separated except by mutual consent. This clause is
essential, and I would have tutor and scholar so inseparable that
they should regard their fate as one. If once they perceive the
time of their separation drawing near, the time which must make
them strangers to one another, they become strangers then and
there; each makes his own little world, and both of them being
busy in thought with the time when they will no longer be together,
they remain together against their will. The disciple regards his
master as the badge and scourge of childhood, the master regards
his scholar as a heavy burden which he longs to be rid of. Both
are looking forward to the time when they will part, and as there
is never any real affection between them, there will be scant
vigilance on the one hand, and on the other scant obedience.